


Not So Impervious

by WindWatcher



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, HFY, Humans are space orcs, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindWatcher/pseuds/WindWatcher
Summary: Humans can survive some incredible things compared to aliens, but maybe surviving isn't the end of it.I first posted a version of this in response to a thread about aliens assuming humans could survive anything only to realize too late they might not survive saving the day, but can't find it to cite it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 125
Collections: Humans Are Space Orcs





	Not So Impervious

There is an explosion in the engine room. Only the human survives. She’s badly burned and shrapnel shredded her arm. She drags herself from the room and passes out. Other crew members responding to the blast find her and get her to the infirmary double quick.

The medical officer’s blue face turns yellow upon realizing this brutalized body is still alive. He flies into action, calling for assistance.

The medical aide is sent scrambling to find the “human medical equipment.” It has never been used.

One of the crew members that carried her to the med bay is set to bringing up all the information they can about treating catastrophic human injury on the medical database. He retches as he skims the files, trying to find relevant information.

The medical officer forces himself into a semblance of composure, but all that’s running through is mind is a memory of the megasecond of lectures on treating humans. Half of the megasecond was the professor listing all of the deadly things humans tend to survive with little to no assistance. The other half was obviously an attempt to scare the students enough that they wouldn’t be surprised and panic when a human survived something obviously fatal. They had laughed up their sleeves that the professor thought they would believe humans could survive the treatments she discussed, let alone what they purportedly cured. When he had graduated and started his job aboard this ship he had found the human treatment equipment and wondered. Now he knows.

The aide returns, carrying a large medical crate as if it is a timed bomb. In glowing red letters it reads in all six major languages, “FOR HUMAN TREATMENT ONLY.” He sets his mandibles and prepares to do the impossible.

Twenty kiloseconds later a message appears on his HUD, informing him that the hematic replicator is measuring safe levels of blood in the human’s body. He staggers away from the torture implements and poisons he used to save her life.

Trembling digits remove and discard, now red, gloves. He holds his hands in front of his face and marvels, not for the miracle they performed, but for the blessing they are. Not everyone is blessed with two dexterous hands… At least not anymore. He looks back at the patient’s prone form and the arm that now ends just below the shoulder. He closes his eyes and says a prayer. A prayer of thanksgiving and of petition for the incredible human who might be too strong for her own good.

It was more than four megaseconds before the injured human recovered well enough to be released from medical. The crew she passes on her way to the bridge gawk. Many visited her early in her recovery and, upon seeing her, said their goodbyes. She smiles a smile of sadness and pride and keeps walking. The captain is visibly shaken, more so than the crew have ever seen when she requests to be allowed to return to duty. The dumbfounded captain looks to the medical officer, the only one to have heard and retained their composure. The medical officer had at least been prepared for what she intended and explains his consent and the precautions he thinks necessary.

About 400 kiloseconds later she tries to catch a data chip with her missing hand. It bounces off her chest and lands at her feet. No one knows what to say as she falls to her knees and cries.

A megasecond later she is back in the med bay with a strained back. She had insisted she could still carry a coolant cell without help. When a crewmate confronted her about the awkward way she moved the next day she mentioned she might have strained her back. She found herself carted back to the med bay practically before she could complain. Only the medical officer sees her tears this time, she having hidden them behind obstinance until her crewmates have gone.

About ten megaseconds later the ship is engaged in combat. One of their thrusters is hit with some kind of electromagnetic weapon causing a feedback shockwave to erupt from a power cell on the second level.

The very same human crewmember dashes headlong to climb the ladder to the control panel an engineer had been operating, where electricity still arcs wildly even as she flings herself up the rungs. She drags the engineer to relative safety, suffering several painful, but apparently not debilitating shocks in the process. As she calls for help getting the injured engineer to the medical bay, she realizes. The engineer isn’t breathing. Her yellow eyes are wide and sightless. She is dead.

The human sinks to her knees, cradling the engineer’s body in her arm, and whispers, “No… If only I had been faster, then maybe…”

Not everyone notices her tears amid the chaos of battle, but some do. Some do and they worry. What if humans, so capable of surviving the impossible on the outside are not quite so impervious on the inside?


End file.
